I'm Anastasia, and I'm an Alcoholic
Let me tell you a story. It’s a story about a girl, from a nice family, a beautiful state, with great friends and lots of space to run and play, and a mind full of monsters.
Her mind wasn’t full of monsters at first – she had a wonderful childhood and grew up with all kinds of beauty around her. She made up silly nicknames for everyone, rode her bike around a quaint but modest neighborhood, watched Lizzie McGuire and played with Barbies. She was…normal.
It wasn’t until much later that she really started to struggle. She started being rebellious. She lied to her parents. She made stupid decisions and got grounded – a lot. She started dating a boy who she thought was the beginning and end of everything. She revolved her entire world around him until eventually he changed his mind, and she was left breathless and completely heartbroken. She was only 18.
She felt sad, obviously, because everyone feels sad when they go through a breakup. But her sadness was different, it was deeper, more intense. Everything felt cloudy and dark and hopeless, almost all the time. Her parents were concerned, understandably so. She went to see a doctor. Her worst fear came to life with one word uttered from the doctor’s mouth: depression.
Flash forward several years. Countless doctors, psychiatrists, therapists, medications and hospital visits still left her with no idea of who she was. She went to college, made friends, dated silly frat boys, tried to figure herself out and tried her very best just to be and feel normal again. Still depressed. Still anxious. But this time, a new monster came into the picture: alcohol.
At first, she didn’t think alcohol would ever be a problem. She was in college. Everyone drank. The college she went to was notorious for partying, so much so that it seemed almost every night of the week was a different occasion to get wasted. Monday – school. She didn’t drink on Mondays. Tuesday - $5 cocktails in humongous Pepsi cups after basketball games. Wednesday – dollar night. Thursday – thirsty. Obviously. Friday through Sunday – day drinking, recovering in the afternoon, then back out to the bars. This went on for two and a half years. She got a job as a bartender. She made tons of friends, and made killer drinks (and tips.) She drank on the job, because everyone did. None of this felt problematic.
Her depression got so bad that she had to leave college and move back home. She continued to drink like a fish, but the once party girl turned into the solo drinker. The solo drinker that turned to the bottle when she got sad, or had a bad day, or just wanted to feel numb. It was easier to feel numb than it was to feel sad. She hid bottles in the closet, in the bathtub, in her purse, everywhere. She began to drink every day. Drinking helped heal the sadness and crippling anxiety. But then the booze wore off and the sadness and anxiety got worse, so she had to drink more. It was a vicious, exhausting and wildly toxic cycle.
She tried to get sober so many times. She went to different outpatient therapy programs. She tried AA. Hated it. She stayed sober for awhile, but always turned back to the bottle. For months, she couldn’t make it more than two weeks without feeling some kind of negative emotion that led her straight back to the liquor store. Again, a vicious and exhausting cycle.
In April of this year, she got COVID and was isolated in a tiny child-sized bedroom for two and a half weeks. It was miserable. She vowed not to drink, but eventually got so lonely and bored and depressed that she had two giant bottles of vodka delivered to her house and drank them both – way too quickly. It was then that she made a decision she’d never been able to make before. She went to a detox facility, got her body off the booze, and decided to stay for a 30 day inpatient rehab.
If you haven’t realized it yet, the story of this girl is the story of me. I’m Anastasia, and I am an alcoholic. It took me four years to declare that statement with confidence. Four years of pain, broken relationships, sickness, desperation, hopelessness and despair. Alcohol almost took everything from me, and I never want to return to that place.
After rehab I relapsed. Again. And if you’re reading this and you’re also an alcoholic, and have been shamed by someone for relapsing, I give you full permission to punch them in the mouth. Relapse is sometimes inevitable in recovery. It’s rare to be the one-and-done alcoholic, meaning you quit cold turkey and never go back. A huge round of applause for those who did. I’m sober now, and it hasn’t been that long, but I’m in a better place than I’ve ever been. I cut off toxic relationships that were causing me more harm than good. I’ve surrounded myself with people – sober people, that I know will hold me accountable, and be by my side if I feel like drinking again. I’ve poured into my spirituality and made it my own spirituality, not one that was chosen for me. I started going to recovery meetings. I wake up early and read or journal instead of immediately getting on social media. And the thing I’m doing that I’m most proud of is what I’m doing in this very moment: I’m writing again. For the longest time I honestly didn’t feel like I had any words to say. It was like a two-year period of major writer’s block. I was ashamed, embarrassed, wanting to hide who I really was. Who I really am.
Alcoholism is the biggest monster I’ve ever had to wrestle. It’s more physically and emotionally taxing than running uphill for a million miles. It’s not something that I chose, or that I wanted to be. But it happened. I’m not someone that can ever be a normal drinker. And as much as that sometimes sucks, I would take a clear head and a good night’s sleep over a hangover and withdrawal shakes any day of the week. It took me a long time to realize that drowning my insides with booze was not doing me a single bit of good. Alcohol turns me into a person that I never want to be.
Recovery is hard and tedious. No one’s sobriety journey is linear. Having to be sober at the age of 24 is incredibly difficult to navigate. Social gatherings and friendships and relationships look a lot different now – but in the end, I’m a better, healthier, happier version of myself. A version of myself I can actually be proud of. So I wear my scars proudly, and I’ll fight my battles publicly, if that’s what it takes for someone else to do the same. I’ll shout my story from the mountaintops, because even though a lot of it is ugly, it’s my journey, and I’m proud of it. So here I am, scars and all, admitting that I’m so far from perfect. I’m Anastasia, and I am an alcoholic. But I’m living, breathing, and fighting every day.
